Susan Pendergrass speaks with Josh Bandoch, author of “How to Get What You Want: Mastering the Art and Science of Persuasion,” about why leading with data and logic is often the wrong approach to changing minds. Drawing on more than a decade of research across psychology, neuroscience, economics, and political science, and experience writing speeches for senior government officials and advising executives, Bandoch explains how the human brain feels before it reasons, why persuasion is about shared action rather than winning, and what policy advocates get wrong when trying to move legislators. They also discuss the Granny Test, how to frame arguments around your audience’s moral values, the role of storytelling, and more.
Episode Transcript
Susan Pendergrass (00:00): So excited today to talk to Josh Bandoch, author of the soon to be out — or maybe by the time this airs, out — book “How to Get What You Want: Mastering the Art and Science of Persuasion.” I want to say it correctly, which is awesome. I was thinking about this topic — we were talking about this a little bit before we started recording — because we’re both right in the middle of legislative sessions. And in addition to being an author, you work in the policy advocacy space. Is this book meant to sort of address that space, or is it for a more general audience? Because we all want to get what we want, right?
Josh Bandoch (00:37): Absolutely. The book is written for a general audience. It will help folks in the policy space, but also in business, sales, or marketing. The goal of the book is to help people get what they want through persuasion. And for me, persuasion is the difference between having a good idea — whether it’s a good policy idea or a good product idea — and having others embrace that idea.
Susan Pendergrass (01:02): Yeah, I think that’s so important because oftentimes — well, speaking for myself — I come up with policy ideas that I think are great ideas, but I come from data, evidence, research. Let me write a 20-page paper on it and do a statistical model to convince you. And I think that based on what I’ve read in your book, you would say that might not be my strongest approach.
Josh Bandoch (01:24): Well, those things are necessary. Data is necessary, and folks who work at think tanks are paid to do research. I work at a think tank — the Platte Institute — and that is what we’re paid to do. But when I think about persuasion, I start by trying to understand the contours of how the human brain actually operates.
The challenging reality for a lot of folks in the think tank space who are paid to think — maybe you’re a consultant or whatever — is that since we’re paid to think, we think that means logic, data, and reasoning are the way to get what we want. The most challenging reality I’ve encountered is that this is how the human brain is wired — not just my brain or your brain, Susan, but all 8 billion of us on this planet. We feel first, then reason. Sometimes it’s feel, and we never even get to the reasoning. We’ve all been there. That means persuasion actually starts with feelings.
I know the folks in your audience who love the work you do — and you guys do great work — and love the research are going to say, no, that can’t be true. Well, it’s what all the neuroscience says. So it actually means that the logic-first approach to persuasion, whether in policy and think tank land or in sales or anything, is actually illogical — because that’s not how the brain works. The brain works feel first, then reason. We do reason. It’s just that we have to start with feelings.
Susan Pendergrass (03:06): So give me an example. We’ve been working for several years on a policy in Missouri that would allow parents to choose where their kids go to public school — just public school, open enrollment. And we get so much pushback from legislators and others who say this is going to lead to basically the destruction of the public education system. That’s their feeling. And I can provide a lot of evidence from other states that have done it for decades — even our neighbors in Kansas, not so much Illinois — and say it hasn’t happened, but they still believe it. I feel like I can’t put the words in the right order to make them understand what I’m trying to do. So what do I need to do differently?
Josh Bandoch (03:47): Yeah, so there are two parts here. First, you just observe what somebody’s feeling. Because if somebody’s feeling great and they’re inclined to do what you want to do, it’s easy, right? In this case — this is a perfect example — they have negative feelings towards the policy you want to advance. So the first thing you have to do is observe, understand, and address those feelings directly. When you’re in these conversations, what is an example of a raw, visceral negative feeling that somebody expresses?
Susan Pendergrass (04:19): They’ll say in our small rural communities, the high school is the center of it — it’s the heart and soul of the community. And if we let kids out — even though it’s the heart and soul — they’ll all want to leave. And if that happens, not only will the school close, but that will kill the community. That’s what they believe. It’s not reality, but I struggle when I go to testify at a legislative hearing to not sound like I’m just putting facts in front of them and ignoring what they feel. I don’t know how to counter that with reassurance and say, that’s just not true.
Josh Bandoch (05:09): So let me briefly walk you through the process so your audience can follow along. Start with feelings — and what you have to do is generate persuasive feelings. What feelings are persuasive? Ultimately, I think it’s positive feelings. Every time I ask an audience who the most persuasive people they can think of are, a couple of people come to mind: Ronald Reagan, Martin Luther King Jr., JFK. They generated positive feelings. And you do that especially by appealing to your audience’s moral values, which in this case might be different from yours. And then the most effective way to wrap it all up is a story.
So how do you start this process? When you’re talking to folks in the community, or to lawmakers, or to local elected officials who you’d like to see change their stance, start by asking them how they feel. It just unlocks a totally different pathway in the brain.
Susan Pendergrass (06:05): But when you’re saying this — and when I was looking through your book — I was wondering: in today’s political environment, I feel like persuasion is being used a lot less, and people are just making statements and not really defending them, just saying that’s the fact because I said it. Especially with how vitriolic our politics has become in the last decade since you started this research, do you think there’s still a good solid place for the art of persuasion? Or are we just going to stand with our arms crossed and agree to disagree?
Josh Bandoch (06:35): So at one level, the answer is absolutely yes, because humans haven’t evolved radically over the last 10 years. Everything in the book is backed by a tremendous amount of research, largely based on how the human brain works, and then lots of practice. At another level, we do have real reason to be concerned, which is what you just pointed to — is persuasion still possible in today’s political environment?
Look, there are only two paths forward. One is that we continue to relish in all the negativity, toxicity, and polarization, or we step back from it. I don’t think, aside from a couple of folks who spend their lives on X, that anybody is really going to say our politics are healthy. So it’s incumbent on us to have better methods to walk back from that, as opposed to just running down that toxic lane even further.
Susan Pendergrass (07:41): So in addition to what happens in state and federal legislative bodies, where I spend a lot of my brain power, how does somebody take the principles of your book and apply them in their personal life? Is this about manifesting goals, or how do they apply those same principles?
Josh Bandoch (08:00): Well, maybe I can sketch out briefly what some of the principles are so we can talk about them. The first step for persuasion — well, I guess two things. One is understanding what persuasion actually is, and I think even this is a mindset issue. We oftentimes think persuasion is about winning. And Susan, if I win against you, what does that make you?
Susan Pendergrass (08:17): A loser.
Josh Bandoch (08:18): That’s terrible, right? You’re a loser and you don’t want to work with me. So persuasion isn’t about winning. It’s not just about launching your logic at people — we’ve discussed that already. It’s not simply about convincing somebody. The Latin root of the word “convince” means to vanquish or to conquer, and conquest is barbaric. So what is persuasion? It’s about shared action — something we voluntarily do with others. That’s the shared part, and it’s action — it’s about getting things done. That’s already a much different understanding of persuasion.
When you bring that approach to your personal and professional endeavors, it’s different because you’re really trying to work with people and figure out how to move forward together. The first step of persuasion for me is adopting what I call the persuader’s mindset — it’s about them, not you. That’s why when we talked about school choice in the community, it’s like, okay, what are their concerns? Take their concerns seriously. That applies in your personal life too — maybe you’re having a debate at home with your spouse or a friend or a child. You have to understand who they are and what they care about, and to the extent possible, proceed on their grounds, because they’re much more comfortable there. This applies to any situation you’re in, no matter what it is.
Susan Pendergrass (09:32): That’s awesome. And you mentioned professionally — sales. I feel like there are a lot of books on how to sell. How does your book differentiate from what’s come before?
Josh Bandoch (09:47): Well, a lot of folks — keeping it in the policy space — are trying to corner people into saying yes to something they otherwise wouldn’t say yes to. What I’m really trying to understand is what would motivate and excite somebody to work with me on something. And that requires generating the positive feelings I talked about, appealing to their morals, telling great stories, and some of the other things I get into in the book. But those are some of the big ones. And it all has to happen simply.
Susan Pendergrass (10:31): In a simple way, right? I’m not going to hold this against you, but I am a grandmother. And I did see the Granny Principle in the book — so explain what that is, because I want to remind myself of this principle a lot. I have a PhD in public policy. I’ve put a lot of years into studying what’s good and bad public policy. And every single year in the halls of Jefferson City, I just see bad public policy happen in the hallway. They’ll say, well, we’ll just give that part up and add this part. And I’m like, no, no, no — you basically just blew up the quality of what you were trying to do. And I see that if I’m coming from up here and things are happening on a completely different level, I’m spinning my wheels. I’m not furthering my goals of getting good public policy passed — which I believe, no matter who’s in the governor’s mansion or the White House, good policy is good policy. And I struggle to make it happen in Missouri. I think the Granny Principle could be part of my problem, so would you please explain what that is?
Josh Bandoch (11:32): Totally. The last chapter of the book — in some ways the least exciting but the most important — is called “Ace the Granny Test.” And what’s the Granny Test? Would your granny understand what you’re saying? You assume granny is a smart lady who is not an expert in any particular thing. So you have to explain things with clarity, simplicity, and precision.
One of the troubles we encounter in think tank land is that we love to dump tons of data and logic and reasoning and examples on people, and it’s overwhelming. We also encounter the curse of knowledge — we know so much that we kind of assume our audience does too. And we oftentimes think, well, they just don’t understand me, that’s their fault and their problem. No, no, no, no. It’s your fault and your problem, because they don’t understand you and they just move on with life.
When you talk to an elected official, you have about 60 seconds to capture their attention. Maximum. So if you’re not crystal clear and simple in how you explain things, they say in that typical apologetic way, well, thank you so much, I’ll take that into account — and then they move on. Clarity and simplicity are premium virtues in communications, and they require a lot of hard work to achieve. Can you distill your 30-page white paper into 30 seconds?
Susan Pendergrass (13:01): Yeah. I’m trying to do cards now — the most simple four-by-six with colors. And in their defense, I’m not coming down hard on legislators — they’re not specialists, they’re generalists. It might be education committee and transportation committee and appropriations, whatever. They have to know a lot of different areas, and even though Missouri and Illinois have long sessions — like five or six months a year — they have other lives much of the time. It is hard for them to grasp things in a short amount of time. I’ve had some back and forth with my colleagues who say we should still write high-level academic papers. I’m like, I’m doing four-by-six cards now. I’m sure there’s a middle ground there, but it’s hard to find.
Josh Bandoch (13:59): Well, the four-by-six is a great place to start. What’s your thesis? What are you trying to say? Can you get that into one sentence? Do you have a couple of key points you’d like to make? But then how do you turn that into something compelling? I would say you do at least one of two things. Ideally, you would have a story. If you’ve got 30 seconds to pitch school choice, you might start by saying, let me tell you a story about little Bobby or little Sally — this is what it meant to him, he was here and now he’s here — and you condense that story. Or you make a moral claim that’s going to grab their attention. People’s morals differ based on, roughly speaking, their politics, but you have to make a moral claim that’s going to resonate with them.
So if you’re talking to somebody on the left, their morals are sensitive to claims over equity. If you were talking to somebody in an urban school district and you wanted to get them to support school choice, and let’s say they’re on the left, you might say, look, our school system is deeply inequitable and we need to fix it. And they’re like, huh, yeah, it is — tell me more. You’ve got to figure out what you want to say, but then make sure you’re framing it in a way that is compelling for your audience.
Susan Pendergrass (15:15): So if folks want to find your book and learn how to get what they want, when and where will it be available?
Josh Bandoch (15:22): It’s available April 21st, and it’s available anywhere you can buy books — Amazon, Barnes & Noble.
Susan Pendergrass (15:24): And you said you spent 10 years researching this — tell me about it.
Josh Bandoch (15:33): Yeah, a combination of research and practice. Ten years of on-and-off reading as much as possible — psychology, neuroscience, primarily.
Susan Pendergrass (15:41): Yeah, that’s fascinating. It is — surprisingly, for what I do full time — an easy part to forget. I’ve always felt like if I just lay out facts and fair arguments, the rest will take care of itself.
Josh Bandoch (15:58): Well, those things are necessary, but they’re not sufficient. They’re necessary because our job, working at think tanks, is to make sure the foundation is strong. We have a policy recommendation, and we have to make sure we have really good reasons to think it’s going to be effective — that it’s been tested elsewhere, or all the data indicates this is probably going to work. That’s necessary. It’s not sufficient. The persuasion layer on top of that is what takes your good idea to a good idea somebody else wants to embrace.
Susan Pendergrass (16:30): Yeah, I think it’s great. Like you said, it’s helpful in so many parts of your life. It comes right up to the very edge of manipulation, but pulls back a little bit. It is helpful for getting what you want — whether you’re buying a car or agreeing with your spouse on the paint color for the wall. It’s a really smart approach.
Well, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast and telling us all about it. It’s fascinating stuff and I really appreciate you taking the time. Thanks, Josh.
Josh Bandoch (16:58): It’s a pleasure, thank you so much.
Produced by Show-Me Opportunity
